After seven years on the sidelines in Ottawa, Montreal needs to be back in the halls of power, Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper said Wednesday.

In his first campaign stop in Montreal, Harper told cheering supporters that it’s time to forget about the Liberals, Bloc Québécois and New Democratic parties because Canada and his government need Quebec and Montreal back in a big way.

“On May 2, I am asking for your help,” Harper said. “Don’t let Mr. (Michael) Ignatieff, the NDP and the Bloc keep this great city, Montreal, outside of the national government of our great country.

“I need your help to give Quebec a bigger place in a Conservative government. Canada needs Quebec.”

It was the first Conservative rally of the fresh campaign and the first time in many, many years that a top political leader, federal or provincial, has shown up in the West Island.

Harper’s team said it was the largest Conservative rally in the West Island since the Mulroney days.

More than 750 people turned out, waiting in line for an hour outside the Des Sources Secondary School in Dollard for a chance to hear Harper speak. Most of the Conservatives were local, drawn from two ridings, Lac-Saint-Louis and Pierrefonds-Dollard.

The Conservatives have not won a seat on the island under Harper in seven years and are hoping for a breakthrough this campaign.

Harper was beaming.

“Wow, this is a great crowd,” he said off the top of his speech delivered in English and French. “Quebec federalists don’t want to be in bed with the Bloc after all.”

He hit all the right buttons. To victims of swindler Earl Jones - some of whom were present - he said the Conservatives passed a law to make sure he remains behind bars.

To the ethnically diverse riding, Harper said even in a recession his government has kept the doors open to immigration while the Liberals in the past “slammed the doors on immigrants and cultural communities.”

And moving to shore up the Conservative campaign in the riding of Mont-Royal where the party hopes to dislodge Liberal Irwin Cotler, Harper said: “Our party has and always will stand beside our Jewish friends as well.”

But it was his message about Montreal’s aerospace industry that really got the crowd pumped. Harper blasted the Liberals and Bloc for saying they would rip up contracts for new F-35 fighter jets to replace the aging CF-18s.

Harper said such a move would deprive Canada and Montreal of $12 billion in potential spinoffs.

Harper made no mention of two controversies already raging here when his campaign plane touched down.

First there were comments made by his star candidate in Lac-Saint-Louis, former Alouettes president Larry Smith, who told Le Devoir Tuesday that French does not need protection in Quebec.